The Cheesecake Factory-owned Fox Restaurant Concepts has taken over the Coronado space that long housed Bistro d'Asia with plans to open a second San Diego location of Blanco Tacos + Tequila Mexican restaurant.
Earlier this year, Bistro D'Asia closed in Coronado after 20 years in business. It was reported by the Coronado Eagle & Journal that the restaurant's landlord refused to renew the lease. We have learned that Fox Restaurant Concepts, the Arizona-based restaurant conglomerate majority owned by The Cheesecake Factory, has signed a lease on the prime Coronado space and is reportedly planning on opening its second area branch of Blanco Tacos + Tequila.
Blanco Tacos + Tequila is a modern Mexican food restaurant that is the product of Sam Fox, who has owned more than 100 restaurants since dropping out of the University of Arizona when he was 20 years-old. Since launching in 1998, his Fox Restaurant Concepts evolved to over a dozen different restaurant brands, including The Henry, North Italia, Flower Child, and Blanco's Tacos & Tequila, which all have locations in San Diego. In summer 2019, the Cheesecake Factory purchased Fox Restaurant Concepts for $308 million - resulting in the sale of 45 restaurants across 7 states and Washington D.C.. The deal also included an additional $45 million to be due based on profitability over the next four years.
Fox Restaurant Concepts reportedly continues to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary from its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. Fox allegedly owns a home in Coronado and splits his time between San Diego and Arizona. In March 2020 during the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, Sam Fox launched a GoFundMe campaign entitled Fox Restaurant Concepts' Team Relief Fund. The crowd-sourcing campaigned raised nearly $90,000 of its half million dollar goal to "help furloughed employees", despite being owned by a company that generated approximately $2 billion in revenue worldwide in 2020. Fox Restaurant Concepts also ruffled feathers in San Diego after they failed to report employees testing positive for COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic when they were required to alert the County Health Department and public.
